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Dave Douglas
And now comes Spark Of Being, a multimedia
project that includes three CDs of music
from Douglas that’s based on another collaboration,
this time with experimental filmmaker Bill
Morrison. Unlike the Arbuckle project, however,
Spark Of Being is a bona fide collaboration between
two living artists, Douglas and Morrison,
along with Douglas’ Keystone band, which
features tenor saxophonist Marcus Strickland,
Adam Benjamin on Fender Rhodes, Brad Jones
on Ampeg baby bass, drummer Gene Lake and
DJ Olive on turntables and laptop (Douglas also
uses a laptop here and there). Available as three
separate CDs or as a box set (all from Greenleaf
Music), Spark Of Being is the combination of
three distinctive and mature works: Soundtrack
(the actual soundtrack to the film), Expand (with
seven new works that further develop beyond the
soundtrack) and Burst (with more music that continues
to explore and interpret the themes of the
film). A DVD will be released separately.
For Douglas, the evolution of his interests in
other media were sparked by that attention to
presentation. “I got involved in design because of
the CD packaging,” he says. “Distinctive designs
like the ones made by Steve Byram, for example,
say a lot about the music [e.g., Douglas’ Keystone,
Mountain Passages and Live At The Jazz
Standard releases]. Then it was a natural step into
other collaborations, like with dance or film. In
my opinion, jazz and improvised music belong in
40 DOWNBEAT NOVEMBER 2010
Dave Douglas (right) with filmmaker and collaborator Bill Morrison
the same artistic world as those forms.”
And, you could say, it was “a natural step”
which led to the back-and-forth magic that
Douglas and Morrison create with Spark Of Being.
The world premiere was performed at Stanford
University in April as part of a multi-stage
residency. Essentially, the production combines
a reinterpretation of the Frankenstein story, with
Morrison providing new, archival and distressed
footage, complete with Douglas’ original score.
Of that story, Douglas says, “The most remarkable
thing for me in rereading [Mary] Shelley’s
Frankenstein is that the monster is not, as usually
depicted, an imbecilic, stumbling zombie. When
the creature first opens his mouth, he goes on at
length in flowing Romantic speech, with fully
formed emotions and well-reasoned arguments. I
laughed out loud. Much of the music here is written
with sympathy for the Creature.”
By way of contrast, the work on Moonshine,
while also provoking laughter, involved a different
creative process: “Most of the titles for
pieces in the Moonshine book came from old
silent films that I had watched and laughed at,”
Douglas states. “They are funny films, but also
the ambiences of the films are so special. I wrote
the tunes inspired by what was happening on
screen. ‘Moonshine’ was the one track that I set to
work with the existing fragments of the Keaton/
Arbuckle adventure film.”
As for the current project, Douglas states
elsewhere, “Spark Of Being began its life as a
meditation on humanity and technology.” The
music itself explores and interprets the themes of
the film, and was created in new ways. “Spark Of
Being worked very differently,” he notes. “It was
almost a completely new process. First of all, it’s
not a comedy. Secondly, I had access to the living
filmmaker, Bill Morrison. We spent a lot of
time talking about different ways the collaboration
could work. Bill is a big music lover—I first
met him at the Village Vanguard years ago. While
there is a behind-the-scenes narrative at work in
Spark, the visual element functions a lot more
like the music, flowing intuitively and telling the
story in a more poetic way.”
Conceived with the Keystone players in mind,
Spark Of Being’s initial impetus came from
Douglas’ collaboration with images, many of
them seen as simple motifs. And it was a bonus
that he and Morrison started working on it at the
same time, many times passing material between
them. “No matter how complex the music gets,”
says Douglas, “there should always be a basis
in simple ideas. I don’t mind if the music gets
way out in the realm of ideas, but for me it has
to still have both feet on the ground. While this
recording may get into some crazy places, all the
themes are built from a few basic motifs. I like it
when there remains a connection to simplicity, a